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Updated: June 22, 2025
He was pale and trembling, and he glared wildly about, as though expecting to see the ghosts of his victims, or the real return of Batavsky to drag him down, as he had done in that awful dream. "Have you any further orders, sir?" "No; but stay come to me again just before dark I may want you," said Kanoffskie, hesitatingly. "Very well," replied Barnwell, bowing himself from the room.
"And may He give you heart and hope in your misery," replied he, again shaking her hands and returning to the hospital. The next day Kanoffskie and his valet started with the government train that makes that terrible journey from St. Petersburg to Siberia twice every year, and at the end of three months they reached the capitol.
"Did I not think so I certainly should not take you, and any attempt on your part to escape would not only consign you to the mines for life, but very likely get me into serious trouble also." "I shall not forget it, sir." "Very well. Now, set at work without delay and get my effects boxed up," said Kanoffskie, going from the room.
But it was a wild sleep that came to him, for all that he had passed through during the day had so wrought up his feelings that it was next to impossible for him to sleep. But both of them got gradually quieted down, and slept, one an honest man, and the other a rascal, and for an hour or more they kept it up, until Kanoffskie again fell into a nightmare. Barnwell was awakened. "Help! help!
"Yes, sir." Kanoffskie seemed entirely at sea. "Will you retire, sir?" "No, I shall remain here all night, and you will remain with me," replied Kanoffskie, timidly. "But you will not sleep in your chair?" "Yes, and so must you. But he had Christian burial?" he asked, anxiously. "Yes, everything was all right." "Thank goodness! But that dream troubles me, Barnwell," said he.
Petersburg to-morrow." "To St. Petersburg?" she asked, eagerly. "Yes. Dr. Kanoffskie is going on a leave of absence, and I am going with him as his valet." "To dear old St. Petersburg! Oh, how I wish I could see it once more! Stay, will you take a letter to my brother there?" "With pleasure." "I have it here.
Barnwell withdrew, and Kanoffskie bowed his head upon the table before him, repeating a simple prayer of the Greek Church which he had not quite forgotten. The young man made haste to Batavsky's cell, but there the old exile, dead, with his eyes staring wide and glassy. He had died alone, without a friendly hand to close his eyes with a prayer.
Some said Batavsky was an exiled nobleman, and that he had been thus buried by order of the governor, but no one suspected for a moment that it was at the orders of the surgeon-in-chief, whose dream had frightened him into the semblance of a human being. When all had been done, and the grave marked with Batavsky's prison number, Barnwell returned, as ordered, to Kanoffskie.
In justice to Surgeon Kanoffskie, he cleared him of all complicity in the matter, although he promptly withdrew, of course, from the menial attitude he had so long occupied towards him, and which had enabled him to escape. Yes, he was a free man once more, and had, through the dictates of his country, been the recipient of an apology almost from the throne.
"It must have been a nightmare, but it was dreadful," mused Kanoffskie. "They are sometimes very horrid, sir." "Very strange. How is old Batavsky?" "I have not seen him since, sir." "I thought in my dream that he had me by the throat, and was strangling me with his bony fingers. And I thought he hissed in my ear that he was going to take me with him.
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